The Irish strawberry industry - once the Cinderella of the country’s horticulture sector, serving mainly processors - has been transformed into a success story, a national soft-fruit conference in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, was told this week.
The secret of the transformation lies in research trials carried out by Teagasc, the farm research and advisory service, at its centre in Kinsealy, Dublin. By following the results of the trials, the industry has boosted yields, lengthened the crop cycle and increased the quality of its fruit.
Dr Eamonn Kehoe, a senior Teagasc researcher, told the conference: “Growers are now using information gleaned from the trials in Kinsealy with very profitable success. They have increased yields by as much as 100 per cent in some cases, while substantially reducing the importation of strawberry plants from countries where plant disease risks are always very high.”
According to Kehoe, the strawberry industry is now one of the areas of Irish horticulture that is expanding rapidly. It is currently worth around €30 million (£23.7m) a year, and he predicted that this figure would grow to €50m within five years, due to higher disposable incomes and a huge public interest in healthy foods.
Horticulture minister Trevor Sargent, who officially opened the conference, said that increasing globalisation of the world food market presented a major challenge to Irish producers. “Throughout the years we now see strawberries, raspberries and other soft fruit flown in from around the world to take their place on Irish supermarket shelves,” he said.
This had reduced the premium prices that, in the past, growers could demand for the first Irish fruit of the year. But the reality, said the minister, was that consumers now expected high-quality fruit, evenly shaped and well presented, all year round. Irish growers have responded to the challenge, adopting new technologies, investing in protected production systems and improving their crop management techniques.
The industry had now moved from producing fruit only during the traditional June and July period - with much of it destined for the processing sector - to producing it from early April right through to mid-November. “This is a significant step forward,” said the minister, “which demonstrates how science and technology can be harnessed to meet consumer demands, while at the same time maximising growers’ incomes and minimising food miles and the environmental impact.”
